In Thailand, people use about eight plastic bags each day, almost 200 billion bags each year. As for causing ocean plastic pollution, Thailand is in the sixth place in the whole world. Thailand is waking up to the harmful effects of plastic pollution on our environment

A supermarket chain in northern Thailand is returning to natural materials for everyday packaging(包装) use, including banana leaves. At first sight, Rimping supermarket in Chiang Mai looks just like other supermarkets that use banana leaves to wrap (包裹) food across Thailand. However, it is unusual to see this traditional, biodegradable (可生物降解的) way used in a big way. Rimping Supermarket says that it no longer provides plastic bags every Wednesday for customers upon entering the place. In the supermarket, something different can be seen on the goods shelves of fresh vegetables. Instead of plastic, fresh products are wrapped in banana leaves. The leaves are great for packaging and once the customer is done with the packaging, the leaves are biodegradable, greatly reducing the need for plastics.

“We have discussed our environmental programme for a long time in our company,” a manager of Rimping Supermarket said. “We tried other materials before, but banana leaves are our final choice since there are plenty of banana leaves in Thailand. But the difficulty is to find a way to keep the products fresh. Some vegetables are not suitable to be wrapped in banana leaves as it becomes too wet and doesn’t keep its freshness,” the manager said.

Rimping Supermarket’s store programme can be seen as a huge step for a greener, plastic-free earth.

Half of the world's beaches could disappear by 2100, a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change suggests.

Michalis Vousdoukas, of the European Union's Joint Research Center in Ispra, Italy, was the lead researchist. "Tourist areas which have sandy beaches as their main selling point will probably face strong consequences," he said. Aside from economic value, beaches play an important environmental role. "Sandy beaches are important habitats supporting a wide range of species. They also protect the coast from the effects of storms, so without sandy beaches other inland environments can be affected by the effects of waves and saltwater entering," Vousdoukas added.

The main causes are rising sea-level and erosion (侵蚀)from storms, the study says, which warned of the near-disappearance of almost half of the world's sandy beaches by the end of the century. Beaches in the United States will be   “greatly affected”，as will shorelines in Canada, Mexico, China and Chile. In the U. S. , beaches along the East Coast and the Gulf Coast will experience the most erosion.

Michalis Vousdoukas and other researchers used satellite images to track the way beaches have changed over the past 30 years and patterned how global warming might affect them in the future. They found that West Africa will see some of the worst losses, where more than 60% of sandy coastline may be lost in countries such as The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. Australia will also take a hit:when the total length of sandy beach projected to be lost is analyzed, Australia would be hit the hardest, with more than 7,000 miles at risk.

For 21-year-old Malhar Kalambe, weekends are not about hanging out with friends. Instead, they have a different mission — cleaning the Datar Beach. Collectively， they have made such a huge difference to the beach that the United Nations has recognized their contributions.

“Actually the idea stemmed from my vacation to Bali, the clean beach leaving a great impression on me. After returning, I found our beaches in shambles. During a conversation with my mother, I was complaining about how bad our beaches are compared to beaches in Bali, and my mother just said, 'Don't complain, if you care, just go and clean. ^? and thus 'Beach Please'," Malhar said. “It began on September 10, 2017 and since then cleaning the garbage on the beach has become a weekend routine. Currently, there are 25 odd volunteers spending our weekends cleaning the beach.”

After cleaning the beach for months, Malhar and his friends realized that it was of a little help and there is no end to this. They needed to contain the source which dumps garbage in the ocean. They found that the Mithi River is being used to dump the industrial waste, construction waste and even domestic waste into the ocean and they decided to also clean the river. Now on Saturday, they clean the Mithi River and on Sunday, they focus on the Datar Beach. In order to make a sustainable （可持续的）difference, they must make people understand that they have to stop dumping garbage into any source. “Awareness, recycling and cleaning up are three steps which can bring a change. I hope people realize it's their duty to   keep their surroundings as well as the ocean clean,“ Malhar added.